The comments here seem very negative compared to e.g. the Google employee protests over Project Dragonfly. [1]
There are two questions here: whether GitHub should allow ICE to buy its software, and whether employees should influence the direction of their company via protests, petitions, and threats to quit.
GitHub specifics aside, I think employees absolutely should organize and quit over issues they feel strongly about (at least when they have the flexibility to find other jobs). Company policy should be guided by the people who work there, and the a company's leadership structure is set up well to resolve the conflict.
The important distinction is that Project Dragonfly was being built to serve a single customer and purpose, both of which employees were not comfortable with. GitHub is built to serve any customer and has a defined purpose that is generally useful. Employees are now uncomfortable with their generally useful tool being used as intended by a customer they do not approve of.
Thats because HN is a US-based website, and that automatically entails "US = good, China = bad" comments. (Even though in this case both US and China = bad)
There are two questions here: whether GitHub should allow ICE to buy its software, and whether employees should influence the direction of their company via protests, petitions, and threats to quit.
GitHub specifics aside, I think employees absolutely should organize and quit over issues they feel strongly about (at least when they have the flexibility to find other jobs). Company policy should be guided by the people who work there, and the a company's leadership structure is set up well to resolve the conflict.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18542830